Week 70

こんにちは！

 

(pssst) Mom, it's choro. ;)  heh heh.  Frozen?  Not really at all no.  Haha, it's getting colder here that's for sure but I don't think that I would say frozen.  -28 huh?  well... that's pretty... cold. haha.

And speaking of the 'prepping.'  Haha, if there was a shifty-eyed emoticon (smiley) then it would have fit perfectly in there.

 

So I... (drumroll)... got transferred.  I am now in a place that they call Kawagoe (ka-wa-go-eh).  It's a little farther north of Fuchu, but still not that far away.  And this transfer is again going to be one of those hard ones, or at least one of those that make you stretch a lot ones.  Reason why being is that we whitewashed in.  That means that the other 2 Elders that were here got transferred out and that me and my companion transferred newly in.  My companion is Elder Sakae (sa-ka-eh) he's from near Osaka Japan.  Him being Japanese doesn't make it hard though.  I speak Japanese well enough now to be able to say, for the most part, what I want to say (so yeah looking back I really can see the progress that I've made in Japanese.  I've started to be able to make gags with the language.  They call them 'oyaji' here 'old grampa jokes' haha).  No the thing that makes this transfer hard is that we're both new zone leaders.  On the one hand, whitewashing is kinda hard. Then on the other, being a new zone leader probably isn't the easiest thing in the world.  Combine those and you get... us!   Woohoo.... yeah we'll see how much is left of me after 6 weeks. 

But get this on the 21st of February, Elder Oaks of the Quorum of the 12 and Elder Hallstrom of the Presidency of the 70 are coming to speak to us!!!!!!!!!  How darn awesome is that!!!

 

So yeah that's the what's up on this half of the world.

 

Way good job on your talk too!  Yeah I sometimes have to give talks, but it is quite rare actually.  More often than not I give a testimony on fast Sunday and then when I enter a new area or when I leave.  Besides that not too much.  But the other day I went to YM and talked to all of them for about 20 minutes about missionary work.  It was way fun.  Yeah I've noticed a big change.  I'm more my get-in-your-way-and-pretend-not-to-notice self again.  I say 'again', but I speak in reference to when I was a shy timid bean who hardly dared open his mouth, let alone get in someone's way.  And Japanese people are so polite and when I do it oftentimes they don't really know what to do.  But then after that they laugh, and I laugh, and it's a great way to build kankei (relationship--> as in member/missionary relationship).

 

But yeah great to hear everything's going well.  Keep me posted.  Thanks so much.  Love you tonnes.

 

キース長老

Elder Keith

Week 69

こんにちは愛する両親,

 

I am doing pretty darn fantastic.  I just love being a missionary.  It's so much fun!

So nope, haven't been transferred.  Yet.  We get transfer calls this coming Saturday.  I love Fuchu area and a lot of the people here in Fuchu, but I think that I am ready for a change.

Do they do anything like tobogganing here in Japan? No.  They don't unfortunately.  I think that most of them don't even know what a sled is.  -_-'   At least I've gotten blank stares when I asked my Eikaiwa (English class) what a sled is. So I will definitely enjoy the tobogganing when I come home.  And did you ask Thomas how long I have left?  He knows!!!  I'm gonna try really hard and forget how long I have left haha. 

So I guess I never really realized that I'm helping to fulfill the Abrahamic covenant like that until now.  Whoa... Nice beans!!  Haha.

Yeah the power of prayer is something that I've really come to be aware of.  Especially since I've come on my mission.  You guys are in my prayers morning and night too. 

Yes this last week is actually looking tremendously busy for us.  We went and had lunch with a member today.  Tomorrow we've got 2 lesson appointments and the one investigator wants to take us out for dinner. Then Wednesday we've got a lesson and Eikaiwa, Then Thursday we have a conference to go to.  Friday we have district meeting, and then sports night, Saturday we've got an appointment with a PI family, and then dinner at a members that night.  Sunday night we've got a stake missionary conference after church.  And then somewhere in between Saturday morning and Sunday night we are going to have to take some time and pack, because one of us, probably me, but we're not sure, will be leaving next Monday.  -sigh-

So yeah, busy busy busy.  No breaks!  Ok well maybe one or two... But after that no breaks!!

Haha, and 4 missionaries from my doki went zone leader last transfer and 1 went AP, so... that combined with the fact that 2 months ago in my last interview, President told me that I was ready to be a zone leader... makes my current situation kinda dangerous.  Haha.  Well I know that whatever happens is what it supposed to happen.  I really have a testimony about the divine guiding of transfers.  

Thanks for everything.  Love you soo much!

 

Elder Keith

キース長老

 

PS:  I did kinda have something by way of request.  Could you send me (by email ASAP (^-^) please) a picture of me playing rugby, and a picture of me with my potato cannon.  I ask by email because I'll be able to do it a lot faster by copying to my memory card and then printing it off at a konbini (convenience store which is mega easy), than by snail mail.  If you're able to do it today お願いします (That is 'onegaishimasu' which is a way of asking someone really nicely for something)  Thanks so much.  Love you.

Week 68

皆さんこんにちは！

 

That one picture of Ben made me chuckle.  Yeah duct tape will work.  It's always the answer!  I love duct tape and I can find a small roll of it here for like a 100円.  Which is the pretty much the equivalent of a dollar.  And they have ALL different colours!!  I'm in heaven haha.  That's a bummer when they make a mistake like that.  Thankfully they didn't make too many mistakes like that when I was in high school.  But there again, way back we had a couple 'danger days'  haha.  Gotta love that snow.  Or miss it like crazy in my case.

Hahahahahahahaha.  I don't know William, but that sounds absolutely hilarious!  I laughed out loud.  Yeah you don't encounter too much accent in the mission unless you talk to one of the 3 brazilians, the mexican, or one of the soon to be 2 Canadians.  Or I guess if you wanna talk to a Japanese missionary in English then that might boost the number up a little bit.

Key Largo sounds like it was way fun and a wicked, (I mean righteous) awesome idea. 

Thomas taller than Daddy and Adam huh... ( o_o ') oh boy... yeah I'm definitely done growing upwards.  I just gotta make sure I take care of my rice cheeks every now and then.  Yeah I can see how tabe-hodai's would get, not boring but maybe like sickening haha.  Tabe-hodai means all you can eat by the way haha.

And that story about getting stuck in the gully made me laugh because I can vividly picture it happening and everyone's reactions and everything. 

And the boys killing cockroaches haha.  Dish soap really does  wonders killing them.  You just spray them with it, and presto!  Haha they can survive a nuclear winter but not dish soap.  Figure that one out!

I appreciate you letting me know about Grandma.  I'll make sure to especially remember her in my prayers.  Acutally if anything does happen, would you either call or email President Albrecht?  He will then get the information to me, basically as soon as he can and advise me on how I should continue on in my work.  I think that's what they want you to do in any emergency situation like that.  If it were to happen I would rather find out sooner rather then when I come home you know? 

That being said though, if something does happen to grandma, please tell President right away.  And don't worry about me.  I'll be ok.  =)

Besides that, yes I am wonderful!  I'm still having the time of life.  It just feels so right.  I love being a missionary.  It's one of the awesomest things in the world.  Yeah, people are starting to finish their missions really fast.  Like a lot of my mission friends are going home.  The sisters that were with us in the MTC are going home near the beginning of March.  -PHEW-  Time goes by wicked fast.

Companionship is going awesome.  Although we're coming up on the end of our 2nd transfer together so the odds that I'll be transferring are very great.  Not only that too, but last transfer, 4 missionaries from my doki (mtc group) went zone leader, and another one went AP.  And in my last interview President told me that I was ready to become a zone leader so...  I think I may have some responsiblity next transfer... haha.

But yeah things are going fine and dandy for me.  It's really hard to dampen my spirits and even harder to keep them damp.  Haha.  Typical me ne? (ne pronounced 'nay' and means basically 'eh')

Thanks for all your letters and support.  It really means a lot to me.  And just wait til you see me as I've become.  Or as I will become, I've still got a bit of time left yet haha.  But that also means another Japanese summer... -_-'  oh boy.  Haha.

Love  you so much.

本当に愛していますよ

 

Elder Keith

キース長老

Week 67

Did I have a nice New Years?  Yes. What did I do for New Years?  Well to be honest it didn't feel like we did that much.  Last year about this time we had 8 dinner appointments in 5 days.  This year we were 3 in 3. ... -_-'  

So like it was still good because the members houses who we did go to were way awesome, and we had a fun time, but it almost literally becomes impossible to do missionary work over New Years here, because everyone's focused on the holiday and people become very unconcerned with religion and stuff.  Not to mention everyone (including our investigator) all went back to their hometowns, which left us with very little to do.  But we did make the most of it.  Christmas was much the same.  Except that on Christmas Eve, we stayed home (sad isn't it).  Then on Christmas Day we had no appointments going into church.  When the 1 hour session ended, we still had none.  :(  But we had to wait around to talk with the Bishop about something and then a member invited us to their house =D  Then while we were dropping stuff off at our apartment we got a call and an invitation to another shokuji (meal appointment).  So we ended up getting 2 last minute meals.  Back to back.  I realized that I can eat A LOT!  Like I ate my fill at the first one and then went over to the second one. (My companion told me before we went in the second house 'I'm not gonna make it. I need to go to the bathroom so bad.')  Then went and in the second one I ate my fill and had seconds and thirds of some stuff.  By the end, let me tell you I was FULL.  I had been snacking a LOT the couple weeks prior to that so I think I may have just been training myself but maybe it's just the missionary part of me haha.  And then after the 2 shokujis we had to ride our bikes what is normally a 20 minute bike ride home.  But my companion REALLY had to go.  So we biked basically as fast as we could back.  There were a couple times during the all-out bikage that I was just praying 'Please let me hold it (my cookie tossing) til we get to the apartment so my companion can go.' Thankfully I didn't end up throwing up but man was I ever full.   Yeah it ended up well.

Nope.  No snow yet!

So yeah my goals for the year are as follows:

-Read BoM cover to cover in Japanese

-Re-read Jesus the Christ

-Focus on consecration in dendo

-learn +500 kanji

-Keep all study areas neat

-Save up another 25000￥in coins

-Work up to 3 sets of 50 push-ups  (I'm up to 3 sets of 30)

-Not get trunky

-Read 'The Miracle of Forgiveness'

-Baptize people (plural- 'people' not person.  more than 1)

I guess those are just my goals more for towards the end of my mission, but they still work.

Our investigators are doing well.  From what I can tell at least.  We just recently had one of our investigators drop us though.  That's never fun.  Didn't come as too much of a shock, but we were able to preserve the friendship, and she's still coming to eikaiwa (english class) so it's all good.  And then besides that we have 2 that we feel are getting close to baptism!  But transfers are just 3 weeks away, and since Elder Hosier and I have been together for 2, the odds that one of us gets transferred is very high. 

But yeah I'm kinda glad the Holidays are over so that we can get back to a normal life again.  Haha.

Love you so much!  Take care!  I'm glad that you made it home safely!

Elder Keith

キース長老